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CHAPEL HILL -- It's been about eight months since Bill Strom resigned from the Town Council under a cloud of controversy.
But Strom will be on the minds of his former colleagues today when the council meets to discuss the town's legislative agenda with Chapel Hill's state representatives.
Some council members want state lawmakers to consider allowing the town to change the way vacancies are filled to avoid the messy situation created when Strom resigned in August, leaving council to choose his replacement.
"If there's a way we can provide a system to allow the community to get through the filling of a vacancy in a way they feel good about, then we should try to find that way," Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt said during a Town Council meeting Monday.
The timing of Strom's departure didn't sit too well with residents, who wondered if he had intentionally timed it to snatch the decision about his replacement from the hands of voters.
Under the town's charter, the council must appoint a person to fill a vacancy if it occurs three days before the end of the election period or later. Had Strom resigned before July 14, the vacant seat would have been added to the November ballot.
The filing period for the 2009 municipal election ended July 17. Strom's resignation was effective Aug. 1.
Councilwoman Donna Bell, who was appointed by council to fill the vacancy, says she would like to see the town move to a "ranked voting" system for town elections.
Instead of being asked to vote for four candidates, for example, as voters were in the November election, they would have been asked to rank candidates by preference.
Bell said Wednesday that had the town had a "ranked voting" system in place, a better case could have been made by residents who believed the council should have selected the fifth-place finisher in the race to fill the vacancy.
"The council would have had that information in the way that it didn't in the last election," Bell said.
She said a "ranked voting" system does not mean the council would have to select the fifth-place finisher to fill a vacancy.
"The rankings would not change the fact that the council might want to fill that slot for other reasons," Bell said.
Kleinschmidt asked Town Attorney Ralph Karpinos to come up with alternatives to the current ordinance for council to consider and also to explore any flexibility in that ordinance that might allow council to achieve the goal of eliminating discord during the filling of a vacancy.
"The one Councilman [Donna] Bell mentioned is one that would clearly require legislative authority," Karpinos said.
